The Federal Government has put in place strategies to double the population of medical and dental doctors from 5,000 to 10,000 from the next academic year. This will be achieved by officially increasing admission quota into medical and dental institutions.
Dr Tunji Alausa, Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja at the induction ceremony of foreign-trained medical and dental graduates by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
Alausa promised that the exodus of licensed doctors and other health professionals to more developed countries would be discouraged by making the health care environment more attractive.
He pointed out that the slightly over 3,000 doctors produced annually in Nigeria remain grossly inadequate. And because of this, he stated that there is the need to double the rate of production of health workers.
According to him: “Equally, we shall expand these opportunities to all other health professionals like pharmacists, nurses, physiotherapists, community health extension workers, radiographers, and others. Although, this will be in phases. We shall create room to produce more and excess because globally, there’s a shortage of health manpower, which has been estimated at a shortage of 18 million people,” he stated.
Alausa said his ministry would continue to advocate more funding for the health sector and increase the value chain to attract more international grants and funding.
